SK5 Lineup: Week 1

It’s a good one, guys.

I can’t even express how pleased I am to be announcing this Skepticon’s lineup. It’s really something else this year! To keep you all on the edge of your seats, we’re releasing our speaker list over the next few weeks – a few new names (and maybe a couple familiar ones…) every Monday. As always, we’re depending on you to help us fund our event – and if we can meet our weekly donation goal (this one’s $1500!) we’ll post the next bunch of speakers immediately. Please consider donating – the vast majority of our funding comes from individuals who want to see Skepticon succeed!

Alright, enough of my fundraise-y talk – let’s get to the names!

Jessica Ahlquist

We’ve been following this “evil little thing” since she started her battle with her public high school to have an unconstitutional prayer banner removed from its auditorium. Ahlquist has since won her case and become a prominent atheist activist, despite receiving innumerable threats from within her Rhode Island community. Jessica is a remarkably gifted speaker, and we’re very pleased to have her at SK5!

Greta Christina

If we’d failed to invite Greta back, we would’ve been due a revolt. Greta Christina’s SK4 talk has been viewed nearly 100,000 times on Youtube, making it the most popular Skepticon presentation of all time. If you don’t yet know who Greta Christina is, you’ve clearly been in cryogenic freeze – and now it’s time to defrost and read up.

Sean Carroll

A Harvard-educated theoretical cosmologist, Carroll specializes in dark energy and general relativity. He is a talented cosmologist and science educator, occasionally making guest appearances on the History Channel’s The Universe, the Science Channel’s Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, and Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report.. Take a look at his homepage or his blog.

Julia Galef

Another familiar face! Julia’s SK4 talk tackled the frequent straw-manning of rationalists in the media. A prolific skeptic, Galef writes for Measure of Doubt and Rationally Speaking and produces the Rationally Speaking podcast with co-host Massimo Pigliucci. She is currently in the process of launching a new non-profit organization dedicated to the teaching of rationality skills.

Lois Harrison
· June 26, 2012 at 3:04 am

Wow. Wow wow. Double wow. Greta Christina and Julia Galef are awesome enough, but I can’t wait to see Jessica Ahlquist! Only four speakers announced and already certain that I’ll make sure to get out to this Skepticon.

Carla
· June 26, 2012 at 7:58 pm

And this list is 75% female so far. I have no idea if that remotely matches the complete speaker lineup, but congrats on not starting things off with a sausage fest. Great start at a diverse group of voices.

Well, Skepticon fanaroos, here we are, two years into our legal fight with Richard Carrier, and we're still standing strong for what we believe. But it's costing us dearly to keep going. So, we're throwing a fundraiser! And you can choose an amazing and dino-filled, hand-made thank-you gift for your donation. That's right, each of the fabulous creations on this page were made one at a time by a human Skepticon organizer (okay, except the postcards).